Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a foldable display apparatus, and more particularly, to a foldable display apparatus that may minimize stress given to a bending area of a display panel.
Discussion of the Related Art
Generally, a display apparatus based on a flat panel display panel, such as a liquid crystal display (“LCD”), a field emission display (“FED”), an organic light-emitting display, or an electrophoretic display, and an electro-wetting display, is mainly applied to notebook computers, portable electronic devices, televisions (“TVs”), or monitors.
Recently, as the demand for a large screen in portable electronic devices increases, devices realizing a large display screen through a connection with a flat panel display panel have been developed and are available in the market. Particularly, a foldable display apparatus based on an advantage of a flexible display panel which may be bent or folded has received much attention as the next generation technology in the field of display owing to a display of a large scaled screen with portable convenience. The foldable display apparatus may be applied to not only mobile devices, such as mobile terminals, e-diaries, e-books, portable multimedia players (“PMPs”), navigation systems, ultra mobile personal computers (“UMPCs”), mobile phones, smart phones, and tablet personal computers (PCs), but also to various fields, such as TVs and monitors.
An example of the above foldable display apparatus is disclosed in the Korean Laid-Open Patent No. 10-2014-0015881 (hereinafter, referred to as “background art reference”).
The foldable display apparatus disclosed in the background art reference provides a large screen by unfolding a flexible display panel on the basis of a hinge unit.
However, in the background art reference, as the flexible display panel is repeatedly folded and unfolded on the basis of the hinge unit, stress occurs, whereby crack occurs in a bending area of the flexible display panel due to the stress. As a result, a problem occurs in that reliability of the flexible display panel is deteriorated. That is, in the background art reference, since one side area and the other side area of the flexible display panel are fully folded to adjoin each other on the basis of the bending area, it is likely that crack occurs in the bending area of the flexible display panel.